Cooking with charcoal has become a very popular pastime in the United States. Accordingly, there are many types of charcoal stoves and grills providing a wise range of cooking surfaces, styles and portability.
When fully ignited, charcoal burns at an even temperature for sustained periods. Most stoves allow for only enough air to produce this even burning of the charcoal which is best for even cooking of food. Thus, many stoves sold today require some sort of starting agent to both ignite and sustain combustion. Typically these starting agents include various forms of petrolieum distillates, electric coils or bottled gasses.
All of the agents described above have problems in their use. Petrolieum products for instance often create fire or explosion hazzards. Electric coils require a source of power and are generally slow. Bottled gasses also have fire and explosion hazzards as well.
As stated above, the major problem with igniting charcoal is in the design of the stove and not with the charcoal. It is the intent of this invention to provide a device for starting charcoal that uses a small amount of kindling or paper to ignite the charcoal quickly, without chemical or other means.